Disney has another box office disaster on its hands. Rachel Zegler’s Snow White is projected to lose over $100 million, much like Brie Larson’s The Marvels, which reportedly cost Disney more than $200 million in losses.
Both films star controversial actresses — Zegler and Larson — whose off-screen comments sparked backlash from fans.
Coupled with weak scripts and poor reception, the result was inevitable: two major flop and a complete disaster for Disney.
The Backlash: What Zegler and Larson Said
Brie Larson and white dudes
Prior to and during the release of the first Captain Marvel movie, which was sandwiched between Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, Brie Larson found herself in the hot seat for comments made especially about “white dudes.”
She said Disney’s A Wrinkle In Time (bombed with $132M back in 2018) wasn’t made for white dudes (“I don’t need a 40-year-old white dude to tell me what didn’t work about A Wrinkle in Time. It wasn’t made for him!“), and she didn’t like that when she went on press tours, that she “noticed it appeared to be overwhelmingly white male.”
Ironically, it was the dudes who actually showed up to support The Marvels, while the women stayed home. Brie Larson has now changed her tune and refuses to address Captain Marvel backlash and feminist topics. She has also questioned if fans want her back in the MCU.
Brie Larson is currently starring in the London play Elektra where she shaved her head. Brie Larson wasn’t named as a member of the large cast for Avengers: Doomsday.
Rachel Zegler hates Snow White
From a publicity standpoint, Rachel Zegler’s comments are actually a lot worse than anything Brie Larson has said. Larson never said bad things about the MCU movies or Captain Marvel as a character.
However, Rachel Zegler completely trashed Disney’s Snow White. She said she was “scared of the original“ and “watched it once and never picked it up again.” She also said she “was terrified of” the Disneyland “ride and never revisited Snow White again.”
She also said Prince Charming is a “stalker” and the love story in the original animated film is “Weird! Weird!“ She added in their new movie that Snow White is “not going to be dreaming about true love, she’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”
Zegler also appeared to wish harm on President Donald Trump and his supporters. Prior to the release of Disney’s Snow White, she apologized for her Trump comments and backtracked on her controversial comments about Snow White. However, the obvious publicity stunt failed to make a difference.
A Disney producer’s son blames Rachel Zegler for the movie’s poor performance.
Zegler is now starring in a London play, Evita.
Budgets and losses
Snow White has a reported budget of $270 million, with it reported the break-even box office number is $500 million. With Snow White likely to finish with around $200M globally, that’s a massive $300M loss. However, the trades are reporting following VOD and home releases, Snow White will lose Disney at least $115M.
For The Marvels, while the trades reported a $237M loss, based on a budget of $270M – same as Snow White – official documents from Disney have said the budget ballooned to $378M. So the loss is thought to be even bigger, closer to $300M.
Snow White vs The Marvels box office
This past weekend, in its fourth weekend, Snow White only brought in $2.8 million. The Marvel’s? $2.5 million.
Domestically, after 24 days, Snow White has brought in $81.9M, while The Marvels on day twenty-four brought in $80M.
Snow White currently has a worldwide gross of $181.6 million. The Marvels finished with a worldwide gross of $206 million.
Internationally, it seems more of the same as Snow White is at $99.7M, while The Marvels finished with a foreign gross of $121.6M.
Snow White box office:
- Domestic (45.1%): $81,920,880
- International (54.9%): $99,700,000
- Worldwide: $181,620,880
Weekend
- Mar 21-23: $42,206,415
- Mar 28-30: $14,331,715 -66%
- Apr 4-6: $5,940,821 -58.5%
- Apr 11-13: $2,800,000 -52.9%
The Marvels box office:
- Domestic (41%): $84,500,223
- International (59%): $121,636,602
- Worldwide: $206,136,825
Weekend
- Nov 10-12: $46,110,859
- Nov 17-19: $10,120,589 -78.1%
- Nov 23-26: $6,325,243 -37.5%
- Dec 1-3: $2,526,164 -60.1%
- Dec 8-10: $1,351,690 -46.5%
- Dec 15-17: $534,142 -60.5%
- Dec 22-24: $54,427 -89.8%
- Dec 29-31: $28,208 -48.2%
